Doomscrolling

According to the Guardian, a US study has shown that every day we get enough information to fill up 176 newspapers, we process about 74GB of information per day.

About 500 years ago that was the amount that a highly educated person processed during his lifetime.

Today we are exposed to as much bad news in one day, as a person received during his entire lifetime, only 25 years ago.

There is so much more bad news than there used to be. But is the world a worse place compared to, let’s say 50 years ago?

It definitely isn’t!

Global poverty has gone down, medical care and as a consequence life expectancy has grown signicicantly, violence has gone down,… still, because we are bombarded with all that bad news we think everything is so much worse today than it was in the past.

Now don’t tell me we need all that (bad) news, that it makes us better in whatever way, that we can’t possibly ignore the news. That only stupid people don’t read the news and that we can’t put our head in the sand and ignore what is happening in the world.

Even though you might think all that is true, me, a genuine news freak, stopped reading the news all together.

My life changed.

I realised that reading the news isn’t giving any added value to my life, and that the 8 news apps I had on my phone basically all said the same thing. Only the title differs. The goal of the news seems to be to bring fear and stress to the people, and most people are buying it.

I turned off the pop ups.
Then I turned off the breaking news.
Then I put a timer on the news apps and moved them to the last page on my phone.
Then I stopped reading all together and even forwarded my physical newspaper to my mum. -it seems to be impossible to cancel it

The result is…

…an endless amount of free time. I had no idea I spend that much time on the news!

I downloaded kindle on my phone and started reading while waiting in line or when I had time
I downloaded Audible and listen to books when I am not able to hold a book and read
I subscribed to different podcast channels that I find interesting
I started meditating
I had time for a daily 90 min ashtanga mysore class

…I am infinitely more happy and less stressed.

News is not essential, whatever is important will get to you anyhow. In return, I got peace, calm and balance. Something I can only recommend!

How about you? Are you still reading the news? Are you tempted to stop the addiction of reading bad news but haven’t done it yet? What would you do with all the free time? Let me know!

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